Interstellar Tour Log: January 20, 2014
Somewhere in deep space
There are some things you can accomplish quite well in space (e.g. mid-air cartwheels) and others, well … not so much. I’m afraid our January podcast is an example of the latter.
Those of you anxiously awaiting the new episode of THIS IS BIG GREEN, take heart: it’s in the works, though Matt’s interplanetary breathing apparatus is getting in the way of his doing a credible talking horse imitation. (You’d think it would be a positive boon, but no.) We’re hoping this problem will be eliminated when we arrive at the gassy, Earth-like planet known as KOI-314c, which – I’m guessing – has a perfectly breathable Earth-like atmosphere. (Hey, they said it was Earth-like. That’s all I need to hear. We’re playing there.)
Interstellar Tour Log: January 23, 2014
Somewhere else in deep space
Well, we’ve arrived on KOI-314c, and if this is Earth-like, things have gone seriously downhill back on Earth since we left. We sent Marvin (my personal robot assistant) out there to gather environmental data (and hunt down some performance venues), and after twirling a few antennae and waving his arms about, he gave us the following run-down on a little strip of paper that might have emerged from a 1920’s vintage stock ticker:
- Surface temperature: 104 degrees centigrade
- Length of year: 23 days
- Atmospheric composition: hydrogen and helium
I wouldn’t say this news was received with a total lack of enthusiasm. Anti-Lincoln was just dying to get out there and take a dip in one of the nearby liquid methane pools. And for sFshzenKlyrn, the guitarist from Zenon, this sounds like a tropical paradise. There are some issues, however, should we be asked to do an outdoor concert. First, my Kork SV-1 would probably melt at 104C. Second, the helium in the atmosphere would make us all sing like those munchkin dudes from the lollipop gym. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) And if we are contracted to play again next year, that’s just 23 days from now.
Guess we’ll consider this conundrum from inside our rented spacecraft for the time being. Maybe even get a chance to finish the podcast. We’ll see, eh?
